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These looked very cool, and might just be the thing I need for my Subaru now that the Canadian winter is approaching. How have they been on the road?
Amazing how much brighter these are – looks like the kit on motorfiend is 3200 lumens, so more than three times what the 9006 bulbs put out. For a reflector housing, I’d be worried about glare as you are really overdriving what the reflector was designed for – you certainly can see it in your light output as you pointed out in the vid. I wonder if one of the other kits out there might be better from a glare point of view – there are 1500 and 2400 lumen kits, which might not be as bright, but would significantly reduce glare.
I believe all of these kits are illegal in the US, but if you can get the glare under control, the ability to essentially never have to change the bulb again can be a real selling point for cars where access is limited! The glare issues are essentially the same as for an HID kit – and is the result of the light source being other than what the reflector was designed for (it’s funny – for OEM applications there are even different bulbs for projectors and reflectors (D2S and D2R) but for retrofits it’s one size fits all…)
What would be interesting to see would be an upgrade to one of the kits that can also function as a DRL – a lot of newer cars use the high beams as DRLs (so something like a 9005 bulb) and some kits have a separate circuit to allow them to function as a DRL – an LED would look a whole lot nicer than an underdriven halogen!
The issue of US legality has come up a few times. Yes everyone says that it’s against federal law but I don’t see the federal police force pulling people over on the highways for HID’s and LED’s in older vehicles. According to Ohio law this kit and HID kits are legal. As I’ve stated several times be sure to aim the lights properly to reduce glare. You could also crank them down a little lower if glare is an issue. But saying over and over again that they’re illegal is getting a bit old.
Hey.. I posted in the youtube comments but have no had a reply yet as far as I know.
Can you please make a night time driving/driveby or just night in general of the cree led headlights (preferably ASAP)? I have hids currently and have had them for about 6 years, however, I go through a lot of vehicles- and when I get a new vehicle I let the old hids go with the old vehicle. I am having a couple problems with my current set of hids, I could get them fixed under warranty but that is a PITA and I’m wanting to go led anyways, for the instant on and hopefully no problems.
I ordered leds from another site (they aren’t cree brand) and they are backordered right now, they should be ready to ship on or shortly after the 14th, though. I know the crees are a good quality brand though, and if I got them it would save me about $70 combined (I need 2 sets one for high and one for low).. so, I’m willing to cancel my order I have now and go with the crees. I would just really like to see how they look at night.
Also, do you know what (or if..) kind of warranty they have?
Thanks in advance
[quote=”icecam” post=115138]Hey.. I posted in the youtube comments but have no had a reply yet as far as I know.
Can you please make a night time driving/driveby or just night in general of the cree led headlights (preferably ASAP)? I have hids currently and have had them for about 6 years, however, I go through a lot of vehicles- and when I get a new vehicle I let the old hids go with the old vehicle. I am having a couple problems with my current set of hids, I could get them fixed under warranty but that is a PITA and I’m wanting to go led anyways, for the instant on and hopefully no problems.
I ordered leds from another site (they aren’t cree brand) and they are backordered right now, they should be ready to ship on or shortly after the 14th, though. I know the crees are a good quality brand though, and if I got them it would save me about $70 combined (I need 2 sets one for high and one for low).. so, I’m willing to cancel my order I have now and go with the crees. I would just really like to see how they look at night.
Also, do you know what (or if..) kind of warranty they have?
Thanks in advance[/quote]
It’s very unlikely I’ll revisit this topic in a video anytime soon. As for nighttime driving, they’re very similar to HID’s. What I like is unlike HID’s they don’t have to warm up to start working. Personally, I like the LED’s better.
As for the warranty, check the link and visit the website. If it’s not there then I would suggest asking Motorfiend directly.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=115157][quote=”icecam” post=115138]Hey.. I posted in the youtube comments but have no had a reply yet as far as I know.
Can you please make a night time driving/driveby or just night in general of the cree led headlights (preferably ASAP)? I have hids currently and have had them for about 6 years, however, I go through a lot of vehicles- and when I get a new vehicle I let the old hids go with the old vehicle. I am having a couple problems with my current set of hids, I could get them fixed under warranty but that is a PITA and I’m wanting to go led anyways, for the instant on and hopefully no problems.
I ordered leds from another site (they aren’t cree brand) and they are backordered right now, they should be ready to ship on or shortly after the 14th, though. I know the crees are a good quality brand though, and if I got them it would save me about $70 combined (I need 2 sets one for high and one for low).. so, I’m willing to cancel my order I have now and go with the crees. I would just really like to see how they look at night.
Also, do you know what (or if..) kind of warranty they have?
Thanks in advance[/quote]
It’s very unlikely I’ll revisit this topic in a video anytime soon. As for nighttime driving, they’re very similar to HID’s. What I like is unlike HID’s they don’t have to warm up to start working. Personally, I like the LED’s better.
As for the warranty, check the link and visit the website. If it’s not there then I would suggest asking Motorfiend directly.[/quote]
🙁 Okay. I did check the site and didn’t see anything about warranty.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=115061]The issue of US legality has come up a few times. Yes everyone says that it’s against federal law but I don’t see the federal police force pulling people over on the highways for HID’s and LED’s in older vehicles. According to Ohio law this kit and HID kits are legal.[/quote]I agree – enforcement is something that generally doesn’t happen. The relevant laws are federal (not state) and are fairly straightforward (as laws go…). The relevant law is established by the NHTSA and is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 108 Lamps, Reflective Devices and Associated Equipment, which specifically addresses headlights and their light sources. (The US isn’t alone in this respect – other countries have done the same (Germany, New Zealand, and others)) – in a nutshell, you have to use a source for which the light is designed (so an HID kit in a light designed for a halogen bulb is illegal – it would also be illegal to use a halogen bulb in a light designed for an HID light source)
The reason is the shape of the light source – the reflectors (for both reflector and projector lights) are optimized for the light source they were designed for – if the light source is larger/different shape (e.g., the arc in an HID light vs. the filament in a halogen) you may get plenty of light where you need it, but you also get lots of light going where it’s not supposed to resulting in increased glare. A real simple way to demonstrate is to look into the lens of a projector headlight – you’ll see a perfect projection of the filament in the bulb. These kits also seem to make it really bright immediately in front of the car (more uncontrolled light) which makes it feel like you can see more, but it actually hinders your ability to see things further away (sort of like being around a campfire and trying to see far away while looking past the fire)
With an LED, they should be able to design a system that puts the light source more or less where the filament is, but since the LEDs are planar, that could be difficult (I have seen some for sale where the LED is much smaller than the one you installed – and LEDs have been increasing in performance pretty dramatically over the past years, so who knows what the future will bring)
In any event – enforcement has been pretty lax to say the least, and the Feds have only gone after importers (and not many of them, at that)
I would go with LEDs for multiple reasons. I believe they last longer and they consume less energy and usually they produce the same amount of light depending on design.
I know little of high power LEDs.
But I worry that they might be short lived. That fan cooling might be a hint of thing to come.
Just guessing.
I’m not sure how I feel about the fans. At first it seemed a little bit .. I dunno.. cheap? to me. But there are videos on youtube of people dunking them in bowls of water while they are on and they work great lol.
The little fan inside your computer hasn’t failed yet, right? I know I’ve never had a computer fan fail on me and I never turn my computers off (I know they do fail some times, though). My current computer is 4 years old with 2 fans in it..I’ve never turned it off on purpose.
The lights I have ordered are from another company and they are the 2nd gen from this company and they DON’T have fans (their first gens do.. I dunno what they did to figure they don’t need the fans now).
Thanks icecam.
Now that you reminded me, I have computer fan failure quite frequently and have recently downloaded some software called “speedfan” to monitor the fans and dual processor temperatures.
T’ain’t that the fan motors quit, but the blades load with dirt and fibers as does the heat sink and other bits that are in the cooling air flow. And the computer snaps off due to it’s CPU thermal overheat protection. My study is by no means a “clean room”, and I wonder how it compares to an engine compartment on the move on the streets.
As an aside, in my challenging ice laden motoring environment for 4 months, I like the heat of incandescent bulbs to melt the offending ice off the light cover.
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